there are two colours in my head

This is it. I'm movin' to Africa. The last couple days have been some of the most surreal of my life. The last night in town was great and I was lucky enough to spend it drinking my favorite beer, on my favorite spot (the porch/veranda/balcony at 13th & D) with my favorite people. I couldn't have asked for a better send off. Thanks Brett, Andrew and Beth.

After no sleep I showed up in Philadelphia took a shower and my Peace Corps career began. The training sessions have been intensely introspective with a lot of discussion about anxieties and aspirations. It sounds hokey and awfully touchy feely, I know, but when you're 1 day into the next two years of a completely different life I think you're allowed to be. The 43 people in my Peace Corps "class" are incredibly smart, diverse, outgoing, outrageous and fun. They've blown my expectations out of the water. It's been cool getting to know them through the training seminar stuff as well as over a fantastic night of dinner and drinks conveniently subsidized by the U.S. government. Thanks for paying your taxes.

As cool as it is to be leaving for a third world country, the harsh reality is I won't even have the meager access to phones or the internet that I had half-expected. I was assured by the Peace Corps peeps that I will have access to the internet or even a phone for at least several weeks. Rest assured, everyone, I'm going to be OK. There's always the mail and I'mna definitely need to be getting letters from home saying that the world isn't going to end and letting me know our empire hasn't crumbled. I still need to go to grad school after all.

My postal address in Niger for the next few months will be:

Kris Kolden, PCT
B.P. 10537
Niamey, Niger
West Africa

Let it be known I love you all and I will post again as soon as I can to let you all know I'm alright. This easily the coolest, most exciting thing I've ever done and I couldn't be happier about it.

I love ya all.

these days I seem to think a lot about the things that i forgot to do.

photo by alyssa schukar
I was lucky enough to spend my last Sunday afternoon stateside doing it up the American way. A handful of some very good friends from college and I posted up at alyssa’s parent's house, drank beer, swam for hours, ate shish-ke-bob and told dirty jokes while listening to a quality iPod playlist. It was fantastic.

I couldn’t help but think how decadent a typical American summer day can be. We were kings and queens for an afternoon basking in hundreds of gallons of clean, filtered water; eating fresh chicken, onions, avocados, pineapple and corn off the grill; drinking micro-brewed beers handcrafted for our pleasure while listening to music on a stereo worth more than a month's-worth of food in many places of the world. Preparing to move to the third-world puts a lot of things into perspective, I suppose.

I leave for Philadelphia tomorrow morning. It’s both exciting and scary. I’ll see you all when I get back.

cigarette smoke doesn't hide as well as you think

i don't like working in groups. seventh grade geography projects drove me nuts. one could say i don't play with others. but then there's my friend alyssa schukar. she and i have known each other since college (oh so long ago) and for whatever reason we've always worked really well together. everything we've collaborated on has been a total joint effort - greater than the sum of it's parts. i think it's pretty unique to find someone like that and it's why she is one of my favorite people.

we started out wanting to do a project together that would involve portraits of our friends. we brainstormed some pretty off the wall and downright garish ideas before we came up with an idea that made us laugh. the premise is headshots against 4 colored backdrops. everyone was asked to bring a prop that meant, said or had something (or nothing) to do with them. to tie it all together every picture features a cigarette. why? because cigarettes are cool, darn it.

it was super fun working with everyone on this project. the best part is this is only the start. as i meet new people over the course of my life i'll take more portraits. it'll continue to grow while i do. some of the people in these pictures i may never see again but i'll always remember them for the impact they had on my life.

so, as i'm heading off to parts unknown i want to say thanks to all of my friends for being a part of this project and a part of my life.

(i promise the posts in this blog won't always be this sappy)

i wanna go to Afrika

i feel like i should have something incredibly insightful, poignant and downright deep for my first post here. i am moving to the poorest, hottest country in the world. i suppose i could blither on about how stoked i am to be stripping my life down to the bare essentials but i'm not much of a writer and i have a hard time taking myself seriously. so here's a self portrait that sums up what its like to be a week away from moving to the other side of the world. enjoy.